Good, Bad and Ugly: Women as Seen in Media

For one night, at least, Jessica Simpson was associated with the word "ugly," while Ugly Betty was anything but.

As usual, however, Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie's The Simple Life was hands-down "bad."

This didn't happen in a parallel, matriarchal universe. It happened Tuesday night in a club near Times Square, at the Advertising Women of New York Foundation's 10th annual The Good, The Bad & the Ugly Awards.

This award show, established by the first women's association in the communications industry, encourages advertising and media that respects women by awarding favorable honors to that which the judges believe depict positive images of women--and handing out unfavorable distinctions to the ads and entertainment that judges think do not.

So Pizza Hut's ad starring Simpson wearing short shorts and hand feeding a "Cheesy Bite" to a teenage boy won a Grand Ugly. Converse also got negatively called out for its "Get Chucked" print campaign, as did Carl's Jr. for its Spicy Buffalo Wings website.

In the popular culture category, ABC's Ugly Betty got the Good and Fox's The Simple Life got the Bad.

Dove won two Grand Good awards. One for "Evolution," a web/TV video showing how dramatically a woman's face is transformed to meet today's expectations of beauty, and the other for a print ad. Nike's nikewomen.com won the Grand Good in the Internet category.

by Willow Duttge